


The Best Weapon In Your Armoury

by WolffyLuna



Category: Dragon Shield (Book & Podcast & Card Game Sleeves), Undisclosed Fandom
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Character Study, Dragon Riders, Flashbacks, Gen, Jain POV, Mind Control, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Dragons could destroy a village, and duchy, even a kingdom if they put a little effort in. Look at what happened to Eastmarch. Dragons were so powerful, why did it matter what humans wanted? Oh, and sure, some of them said they cared. Maybe even did something the humans wanted. Protect them from other dragons, bless a harvest, something like that. But even the nice ones could destroy. You lived because of their good graces. Because they decided they liked your king, and they didn’t need to destroy your country to get rid of him. Even on the furthest mountain tops, dragons were always breathing down your necks.And to stop it, she needed a weapon powerful enough to kill dragons.There were options. But the best by weapon far was control of another dragon.
Relationships: Amina & Jain
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Best Weapon In Your Armoury

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenlua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenlua/gifts).



> I had so much fun getting out my conspiracy theory corkboard, and tying red string to all the little back of the box lore snippets, and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed going "Oooh, so _these_ dragons would know each other--"

Jain creeped across the cliff, handhold by handhold, foothold by foothold, and desperately trying not to look . She’d scaled cliffs before. Many times. She’d climbed crumbling chalk edifices that came apart under her hands. She’ scaled castles covered in smoothed and greased marble to stop assassins like her coming up.

This was the worst cliff she’d climbed across.

The whole cliff face was made of knife sharp obsidian. Obsidian made good knives, and this cliff made you truly understand how good it was for that. This cliff face was as natural as you could get, but every natural roughness or erosion in this cliff had become broken glass peaks and divots. Every hand movement had an under-breath prayer that this time it would not cut through her gloves, cut through her skin.

The was mirror smooth, hard to get purchase on, and gripping tighter only made it worse.

Even through her gloves, she could feel the heat of the lava deeper in the mountain, the possibility that maybe this time it would erupt in a shower of molten rock and poison gas and quaking that knocked her off her perch.

She reached the top of the cliff wall, and collapsed in a heap of black ash. It got in her hair and cut it, and rubbed a layer of skin off her unprotected forehead, tried to worm its way under her mask. But that was better than the cliff.

And both were better than what was waiting for her. ...what she was waiting for, with mixed dread and excitement.

This was dragon country.

Gemstone dragon country.

And with a gemstone dragon, she could do what she needed to do.

She’d spent a fair chunk of years in the employ of counts and dukes and kings who thought the best way to stop an assassin was sending a better assassin after them. Best money they had ever spent on a weapon, they always said. (“And much better company than a sword,” some of them said.) It worked well enough for them, so it might work for her.

If you wanted to kill a dragon, you needed a dragon.

And a big one lived here.

She just had to find it first, before they found her. She doubted she’d get a warm welcome.

She walked towards the next cliff, keeping an eye out for any signs of movement.

Dragons could destroy a village, and duchy, even a kingdom if they put a little effort in. Look at what happened to Eastmarch. Dragons were so powerful, why did it matter what humans wanted? Oh, and sure, some of them said they cared. Maybe even did something the humans wanted. Protect them from other dragons, bless a harvest, something like that. But even the nice ones could destroy. You lived because of their good graces. Because they decided they liked your king, and didn’t need to destroy your country to get rid of them. Even on the furthest mountain tops, dragons were always breathing down your necks.

And to stop it, she needed a weapon powerful enough to kill dragons.

There were options. But the best by weapon far was control of another dragon.

She saved up for years, taking the best paid jobs from the highest up people, even if they were the most dangerous.

She spent half her money on the magical emeralds that hummed with peace and made anyone who held them calm down, even if they didn’t want to. The man who sold them seemed haunted and grief-stricken, and she’d done enough research to guess why. Saved her from the trouble of doing that herself, at least.

She spent the other half commissioning an enchanter to make a harness, encrusted with those emeralds, that brought connection and control.

She went into debt learning the ritual that would bond her with a dragon. If she did it right, she would have control of it, have a weapon of wings and teeth and power. If she failed, she’d be the one controlled. Or dead. Dead sounded better.

Now, all she had to do was find a dragon.

Which was easier said than done. Yes, this dragon was large. However, this dragon was mostly black, with flashes of orange, and its lair was mostly black obsidian, with flashes of orange in the cooling pahoehoe.

She made her way to the peak, clambering over scree and climbing up cliffs, snaking across the mountain through the clearest path. Up there, she would have the greatest visibility, the best chance to see the dragon before it saw her.

(She pictured her taking a peek beneath her feet, and realising that the lazy lava river below her _wasn’t_ , seeing the rising and falling chest of a sleeping dragon. She pictured letting go and taking a leap of faith, harness in one hand, wondering if the dragon would wake before their new fate landed on them. She looked down for real, and the lava river turned out to be exactly what it looked like.)

She reached a hand to the top of the last cliff--

And a rush of wind washed over her. Something landed with a rock-quaking bang above her head. 

The quake tried to shake her fingers off her hand hold. . The wind tried to push her out into the abyss below her.

She gripped the cliff tighter, prayers hissing out between her clenched teeth. She knew how to fall well. Knew all the tumbles and tricks to fool gravity. But half the trick to falling well is to never fall in the first place. And even with a perfect fall, from this height— if the force of the landing didn’t get her, the lava would

She looked up, with mixed hope and fear, at whatever made the wind and the quake.

A large eye, glassy and orange, stared at her. Unreadable. The dragon was too big and too alien—no, too draconic for her to understand.

She knew dragons were big. She’d seen the silver scale shields, and she could extrapolate. But it’s another to see it in the flesh, in real life and not in imagination.

Their head was too big to take in all at once, not from this close. So big it was hard to describe. Four cows long and two cows tall, if she was forced to try and jam what she saw into analogy and measurement. So big it could eat her like she’d eat an apple.

And that was just their head.

The eye watched her. The dragon doesn’t seem angry. If they were angry, she’d be dead already. Maybe curious? Maybe confused? Maybe she was just blindly applying human emotions to a dragon.

It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change what she does next.

Her left hand let go, leaving her other hand gripping the cliff face even tighter. A glassy ridge cut through the leather of her glove, into her skin. For a sickening, dizzying moment, she feared her instincts will make that hand let go, give into the pain and release all her muscles, and she’d plummet to her death. She gritted her teeth, and gripped tighter. _Just for one more second, hold on for just a moment more_ —

She reached down for the control harness, and tossed it over the dragon.

It landed badly, lopsided and upside down, but it was magic. It corrected itself. Slid into position and tightened where it needed to.

The dragon turned to look at the harness, definitely confused now

Jain leaped up, using the cliff like a vaulting horse, and grabbed on to the harness.

The dragon shook, trying to dislodge her and the harness.

They weren’t getting rid of her that easy. Not when victory—the first victory of many, once she can use a dragon as a weapon—was so close. She looped her hands through the harness, gripped as tight as she could with exhausted hands, and started chanting.

The dragon leaped into the air, dragging Jain with them. They shook and twisted in the air, dived down and dashed upwards, trying to dislodge her.

The harness just gripped tighter around them both.

Jain kept chanting. If she stopped, all this would be for nothing. (And she’d be attached to an angry dragon that had no reason to care about what she wanted. Which wouldn’t end well.)

They flew up through the clouds.

Jain choked on the sulfurous ash, but that did not stop her.

Above the clouds, crisp and cool winds rushed past them, ripping the words out of Jain’s mouth. Tears stung the corner of her eyes. The air forced down her throat by the wind made it hard to breathe. But she didn’t stop.

And just like that, a connection formed. Like striking a match—it was only small, but it was light where there was none before, sudden and bright. The emeralds glowed in the harness, incongruously bright and green against the glassy black and orange of the dragon.

She felt the dragon’s confusion and annoyance. Why was this human on her, why couldn’t she dislodge them? It was frustrating, but not concerning. Not yet.

The dragon felt her gritted-teeth determination, her desire to succeed, for the sake of herself, for the kingdoms rushing past below them, for humans as opposed to dragons. The dragon felt her fear, the terror that dragon would dislodge her, that the harness would snap, that she’d fall and fall, with the terrifying knowledge that nothing she could do would stop her from hitting the ground.

The fear that she would fail, and that the dragon would gain control of her, that she would become the dragon’s weapon.

And then, just then, a little kindle of fear lighted within the dragon. She threw herself into another twisting turn to try and get rid of Jain.

Another flash of the emeralds. A sensation like falling, but different from any other fall either of them had felt.

_Her name was Amina._

(No, no, no, her name was Jain. She had to hold onto that, hold tighter to it than the harness, than the cliff face that cut her, tighter than she held anything before. Her name was Jain, Jain, --)

_Her name was Amina. She knew that. To describe her knowledge of that as certainty would be wrong. Certainty implied doubt. Her name was Amina, and that was what she had been called her entire life._

Jain laughed, torn between joy and distress. It was working. They had a connection. A growing one. It was elating. It was terrifying.

_She stood on a cliff face of amethyst. The walls and ceiling of the giant geode glittered all around her, but she didn’t pay them much mind. No, what took her attention was the panoply of dragons beneath her._ (Sapphire and diamond and turquoise lay out in a sea beneath her perch, and Jain caught herself calculating their value. It wasn’t a king’s ransom, it was a kingdom’s.) _Rubis and Gretan bickered. They would not describe what they were doing as ‘bickering’, and instead as a painfully polite discourse, but bickering was what she was doing, and she would not stand for it while she was holding court._

The connection shifted, something like the movement of the rope in tug-of-war, or the resonance of a bow’s string.

_She sat in a run-down tavern, negotiating her own price. Alben stroked his beard, trying to look pleasant while really obviously evaluating her. “I don’t usually_ buy _apprentices.”_

_“You’ve seen some of my work. You’re the only one who’s noticed, actually.” Alben was an assassin: a surprisingly open secret. That he needed an extra pair of hands was more secret. “Consider me an investment.” An extra tool in your tool box, she didn’t say._

_Her parents would beg her not to. They’d say that the money wouldn’t be worth the danger she’d be putting herself in, or the shame of indenture. Say that they didn’t need the money, that they could get by. And they’d insist and insist until they were starving—and_ then _they’d sell her. Claim it was a bride price, and sell her to the sort of husband that’d pay a pittance because he knew they were desperate, and that’s what desperate people_ got _. But her parents would believe to their last breath that they’d made the best choice, that forcing their own hand was the most ethical option._

 _Jain had a different philosophy. When all your choices are terrible, choose one. Admit you can choose. Don’t cut off choices because you simply_ couldn’t _, you would never--_

_Alben held out a hand. “It’s a deal.”_

_She swallowed her pride, and sold herself as an assassin. “Put it in writing, and then I’ll shake.”_

She flinched back from the memory, from Amina seeing it—and then forced herself to relax, to be open. She needed this connection. This was her best option. If it had to go both ways, then she was willing to pay steep prices.

_Air rushed past her as she dived, dived, dived. She breathed, and ash and flame and sharp glass flew out from her throat. Humans raised their shields, their spears, in petty defence and defiance. She almost laughed. What could they do to her? She was a dragon, she was justified, and she was untouchable by human hands._

_Jain’s hands shook and her throat burned as she chugged the ale, but she did her best to fight back the discomfort. She was celebrating! She was going to be happy about this! She’d made her first kill, and reforged herself into an assassin. What an honour. ~~What a shame.~~ What a victory. ~~What a defeat.~~_

_  
_

_She ate rocks. Granite, with feldspar phenocrysts. Imported from some distance away, from a quarry that was an older cousin to her own lair. It was a fine meal, fit for a queen, and she very much enjoyed it._ (Jain tasted the rocks, like she’d eaten them herself, but she couldn’t quite fit the sense memory into her own understanding of taste. They tasted... meaty? Salty? Good, but undeniably a rock?)

_Her hands shook and shook and shook. She hated it. Hated it every time it happened. Made her feel weak, which she was. She couldn’t hold a dagger like this, couldn’t defend herself. She was useless._

_It wasn’t a bad job she’d done. Not objectively. Quick and clean and she could pretend to herself that the target had done something to deserve it. But Mirage had been the one who’d put her up to it, and killing a human on the order of a dragon just felt wrong. Like a betrayal._

_(It was the last job she’d taken before she made her plan._

_But she still took more jobs from Mirage anyway.)_

The emeralds flashed again and went dark, and Jain realised with a start she could actually see it, no longer blinded by the tumult of sense memory.

She felt her wings beating, felt the volition behind it, like how one was aware of each step they took.

It was at a distance, though.

She could feel her hands gripping into the harness, the wind whipping at her hair and dragging it out of its braids, with more clarity.

It worked? She swallowed down the initial rush of success. Maybe it hadn’t worked. She couldn’t know, she’d never bonded with a dragon before. She couldn’t count her victories too early. Not if she had failed, and she was trapped in the air with an angry dragon.

She instructed Amina to level off, as a test.

And she did.

The lightning bolt of joy struck her truly this time. It worked! Her plan, the fruit of years of labour, worked! There was so much more to be done, but this was a start, and oh, what a start it was!

A jolt of fear and confusion and frustration echoed through Amina and into her. _She didn’t mean to do that. She didn’t want to do that. She was a dragon, a queen of dragons, she should not be controlled by a human!—but she is. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t disobey, not matter how hard she tried. It was a cosmic injustice and_ it shouldn’t _\--_

Jain patted her shoulder. “Sorry about that. It's for the best, and you’ll get used to it.”


End file.
